


Things To Do Instead of Rest

by dweeblet



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: ? - Freeform, Bonding, Drabble, Everyone is Okay For Once, Family, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:48:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23852578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dweeblet/pseuds/dweeblet
Summary: Maddie felt like she could understand him again.
Comments: 23
Kudos: 158





	Things To Do Instead of Rest

**Author's Note:**

> you can have a lil drabble,,, as a treat

She couldn’t sleep. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Her husband could pass out before his head even hit the pillow, but Maddie found herself prone to insomnia. Daylight was just so short, and all that unspent potential puttered around in her head like nighthawks at its end. How could anyone sleep with so much still to be done?

It was common enough that Jack hardly stirred when she swung her legs over the side of the bed into her slippers. None the wiser, he rolled over and commandeered the blanket she was no longer using. She shut the door as quietly as she could, then padded down the hall with a soft smile on her face.

Despite the havoc it wrought on her sleep schedule, there was no denying the charm of her late-night wanderings. She loved her family above anything else, but it was nice to have an uninterrupted run of the house without a backdrop of Jazz’ well-intended rambling or Danny’s door-slamming habit. It gave her space to think without all the business and bustle that came with the waking hours of the world at large.

Still, her instinct guided her to take a peek at her children before she went about her business. It was a rare delight to catch them unguarded nowadays, they’d been growing up so fast. Both of them seemed to be pushing more and more boundaries lately, and Danny in particular had been especially unruly in recent weeks. 

He’d seemed distressed with Jazz’s departure for college on the horizon. Maddie might even dare to call him  _ clingy _ at times, as though he’d suddenly decided to make up for all the time lost bickering instead of bonding. It was kind of cute, but she worried for him. As a general rule, he was often higher-strung than he liked to let on, and all of a sudden he’d been expressing that in… outbursts—never delinquent enough to land him in any  _ real _ trouble, but just one close call was far beyond her comfort. 

A pang of guilt struck her at the thought. Ever since the portal opened she and Jack had so little time to spend on their children—they took Danny to his appointments after the accident and met with both kids’ teachers to check in on performance, but it had really only been the bare minimum. She knew it was for the good of the town that they kept on top of other things, but that didn’t mean it was exactly fair. It was no wonder he acted out.

That said, there was a fifty-fifty chance he would actually be in bed. A not-inconsiderable part of her wanted very much to delay that gamble, so she passed his door to check on her daughter first. Jazz was snuggled up with her old stuffed Bearbert, face squished against her arm and soft snores whistling through her nose—a far cry from her usual projection of confident maturity. It was nice to see her embrace her inner child every now and then, even if it’d been hard lately.

Maddie leaned over the bedside and planted a gentle kiss on Jazz’s temple. Sighing, she smoothed the blankets down and gave her a parting pat on the head, then crept back out into the hallway.

Next, Danny’s room. His doorknob was frigid, as always — she would need to ask Jack to help her find the source of this draft—and the door creaked when she nudged it open. Pale moonlight spilled through the curtains, illuminating the very obviously empty bed. The heavy top quilt was thrown back almost to the foot of the mattress as though he’d gotten up in a hurry.

Worried but not surprised, Maddie paced over to test the window. It could only be locked from the inside, but these days that didn’t mean much. Danny had a vexing proclivity for sneaking out in truly creative ways, always just industrious or amusing enough that she and Jack couldn’t bring themselves to do much more than ground him, as though that had done anything to deter him in the first place. 

She left the door open behind her, padding over to check the bathroom. Predictably, it was unoccupied. Maybe he’d stepped downstairs for a drink, or more likely, a snack. He was on the path to taking after his father’s eating habits, though he never seemed to gain much weight, if any. He was due for a checkup, too, she mused. She’d have to block out a time to call the primary care office—but first she needed to find him. 

Maddie tiptoed down the stairs, squinting into the dim house for any sign of her son. Someone had definitely been through here—he’d left the cabinet open, but the kitchen was empty, and in the living room the television was off. Had he climbed up to the roof again? She tried very hard not to be frustrated with him, understanding that things were a bit hectic ever since—

There was a little square viewing pane set into the basement door just around her eye level, meant as a way of keeping an eye on the rest of the house without breaking too many lab safety procedures. The thick glass was usually glossy and black at night, but right now it was unmistakably glowing from within. 

Someone had opened the portal, and it had to have been Danny.

There was no way it was a ghost. Only a Fenton could open that genetic lock, and nothing with an ectosignature could overshadow its way in without tripping the alarms. Probably.

Just in case, Maddie darted over to the kitchen drawer beside the refrigerator. She spent a long moment rummaging through old mail and loose change before she found the object of her search: a miniature ecto-pistol. It was nowhere near her preferred level of firepower, being more meant for the kids in a pinch, but it was strong enough to stun if she aimed well. She checked the cartridge and flicked the safety off, then shouldered the heavy door open.

Its hinges ground and squealed, seeming thunderous in the silence of the witching hour, but Danny, if he was down there, didn’t react. Slowly, carefully, she toed off her slippers—their soft bottoms had no place sliding around the lab—and began to climb down the stairs. The stippled metal bit into her feet, frigid and rough, but she did her best to keep silent.

A perfect eye of swirling green mist that rippled and undulated as though stirred by some unseen wind, the portal was, indeed, open. It was more active than she’d seen it before, almost oceanic in the way it seemed to breathe. Anything could come through from the other side, but the air was remarkably still and quiet.

With a fleece blanket draped over his bare shoulders and a mug on the floor beside his knee, maybe three feet away from the yawning mouth of the portal, was Danny. He wore only boxers and a white tank top that glowed under the blacklight, but didn’t shiver in the underground cold—instead, in his cross-legged meditation, he swayed minutely from side to side.

“Danny, sweetie?” She lowered her weapon and abandoned it on the nearest flat surface. There didn’t seem to be any invasion or threat, and in its absence concern pushed her forward. He’d avoided the lab like the plague ever since his accident, and yet here he was. “Are you alright?”

“Yup,” he said, but didn’t look at her, so she moved closer to observe him. 

Face brightened by a tranquil smile and eyes sleepily shut, he struck her as content in a way she hadn’t seen in a long time. He’d been so anxious and snippy lately, but here he seemed at peace, face turned up into the sickly green light like he was basking in it.

Hesitantly, Maddie lowered herself to one knee beside him. It wasn’t life-threatening, but Jazz had said that the accident in the lab might have been traumatic. It was scary. It left a scar, a big one, and those left marks deeper than skin. Between his brief hospitalization, the transition into high school, and, of course, the sudden plague of ghosts, he’d had a lot to adjust to in the past year. Was this his way of coming to terms with it?

There was only one way to find out. “What are you doing?”

“Mmm… Listening.” He sighed dreamily, then cracked one eye to look at her. “Do you want to try it?”

“Can you look at me?” Maddie asked. He didn’t  _ seem _ overshadowed, but this was utterly bizarre. Her first thought was that this really wasn’t like him, but it then dawned on her that she wasn’t really sure what that would mean, nowadays.

Danny did as he was told, craning his neck to face her as he opened his eyes. They were painted green in the foggy glow of the portal, but clear and alert despite his muzzy demeanor. No splitting or discoloration; no ghost that she could discern. Maybe this really was a coping mechanism. When he snuck out at night, was this where he’d been going all along? 

“C’mere.” Danny turned back to the portal and patted the paneled floor at his side, inviting her to sit. “It’ll be nice.”

His voice was tinny in the enclosed metal space of the lab and strangely lilting, almost accented in its odd breathiness. She considered the ecto-gun in the stairwell. Still, she did as asked and crossed her legs, shivering at the cold through her pyjamas. Seeming satisfied, Danny resumed his apparent meditation, drawing in a long, slow breath through his mouth.

Maddie hesitated, but curiosity won the day. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he assured her, and for some inexplicable reason—call it mother’s intuition—she believed him. “Seriously, though. Close your eyes and breathe with me. Maybe you’ll hear it.”

This was really, truly worrying, but he just sounded so calm. There was unfettered  _ joy _ in the airy rise of his voice, like he’d rather be nowhere else. “Hear it?” She trailed off.

“The portal,” he said. “Maybe it’s more like a feeling than a sound—it’s singing.”

His readings for ecto-contamination had been consistently higher than normal since his accident—was he spectrally sensitive? Genuine psychics were incredibly rare, but not unheard of, and if anything could make one it would be a good ecto-electric shock. But if that was true, what on earth would he be reading from the  _ portal _ of all places? It was just a door, not a consciousness. “Singing? I don’t know… ”

Danny pulled a face. “Stop thinking so hard about it,” he grumbled, sounding a little more like his usual self. “Just trust me on this.”

“Okay,” Maddie finally allowed. “I’ll try. What am I supposed to do?”

“Thanks,” he breathed, and began to instruct her. “Just close your eyes and relax a little, like in yoga. Jazz says the important part of meditation is being in the headspace for it. What’s the portal feel like to you?”

“Cold,” she answered immediately, then slowed herself to think about it. There was a thickness in the air, and a low warbling bassline of otherworldly buzz that juddered through the frame and shook the floor. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sound, and it lingered just beyond the edge of her hearing. “Heavy.” 

“I bet,” Danny said, strangely fond. “There’s a whole world on the other side.”

Dimension, actually, but she withheld her correction. Instead, Maddie hummed, reaching to understand. “What is it like for you?”

“Home. There’s a piece of it in me. I feel like… I guess it gave me a second chance.” He opened his mouth, then shut it again, and Maddie waited in rapture as he seemed to come to some kind of decision. “I know it’s weird,” he told her. “That  _ I’ve _ been weird, since the accident.”

“Danny… I’m sorry your father and I haven’t been around like we should have been, lately.” She opened her eyes to take in the slope of his profile, lit in otherworldly green against the dark. He was beautiful, but so much older than she ever saw him in her head. “I know we haven’t made it easy for you.  _ I _ haven’t made this easy, but you can tell me anything.”

Danny blinked at her, dreamy composure slipping away in favor of something a little more familiar. Guarded. “Oh,” he said, “I know. What makes you say that?”

His eyes on her were heavy; even cast in shadow as he turned, they seemed to glow with the same corrosive brightness as the portal he took such comfort in. He looked right through her, but Maddie felt like she could understand him again, just a little. 

“Nothing in particular. I just thought I’d remind you.”

The chink in his armor was vanishingly small, but he left it open for her to see, offering a glimpse to the inner life he’d been hiding away—an olive branch, a tacit apology for his reclusion. For growing up. 

It was a scary thing, but Maddie realized she wasn’t afraid.

  
  
  
  



End file.
